Ep426: Ulrik Nerloe – Bring Your Heart to Work and Life

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. To join our community go to my worst investment ever.com and receive these five free benefits. First, you get my risk reduction checklist I created from the lessons I've learned from all my guests. Second, you get my weekly email to help you increase your investment return. Third, you get a 25% discount on all a Stotz Academy courses. Fourth, you get access to our Facebook community to get to know guests and fellow listeners. And finally you get my curated list of the Top 10 podcast episodes fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests, Erlich nalo are they are you ready to rock?

Ulrik Nerloe 00:56
Totally. So happy to be a bud on your podcast.

Andrew Stotz 01:00
I'm really happy to be have you on and I really enjoyed our discussion that we've just had. And I'm looking forward to bringing some of that to the audience to the list, you can download it, I feel that I can feel that. So let me introduce you to the audience. Early Nanos specialty, is empathetic dialogue. And the work with clarifying and realizing dreams, as a holistic coach and mentor early helps people to encourage the joy of life and find themselves. The energy is high, happy, and caring, are like is a good host, whether it's in a meeting in a conversation, or in private, because he is in close contact with his intuitive and empathetic sides. And often are the senses something happening or not happening in a room, which most people oversee and miss. And he's not afraid to act on those emotions. He also has a sense of creating business leading people providing service and experiences. He's an international best seller gives inspirational talks, and publishes podcast series, or like take a minute and filling further tidbits about your life.

Ulrik Nerloe 02:16
Thank you so much for the amazing introduction, Andrew. My life is about dreams as about getting the most out of life. And it's about making people aware of this amazing unutilized potential that the most of us having just in front of us, but actually never, ever experienced it. And I mean, when you reached out and asked me if I wanted to join your podcast, I immediately Yes. Just thought to myself, yes, of course. I mean, it's all about courage. And it actually takes lots of courage to tap into dreams. Because most people are so unconscious in the way they live their life. And most people know everything about the things they do not want the things they don't dream of the things is not making them happy, the things is not generating energy. But it's actually quite difficult for a lot of people to turn that around to figure out what is my greens? What is the that makes me happy? And what is it that green generates energy. And this is this is my life, this is what I'm trying to make a difference in the world from.

Andrew Stotz 03:19
Just curious, before we get into the big question. Is it that people can't visualize what their potential is? Or they can visualize that they just don't have the courage to go, go get it? What do you think?

Ulrik Nerloe 03:33
You know, Andrew, I mean, in my experience, I've had more than 5000 hours of mentoring one to one with everything from top politicians, top CEOs on an international scale, and to teenagers, middle management and stuff like that. And I'm seeing a clear pattern here. And I see that most people are either stuck in the past, or they're waiting for the future, but they're missing out on the present moment. And I think this is the challenge. I mean, if we are stuck with the stories that we've somehow gained on our life path, telling ourselves, that's not gonna happen to me, I don't think you're able to do something like that. All we constantly awaiting for when I get my bonus that will make me happy when I find my future wife that's going to change everything we would constantly need to have something else present, instead of actually just putting focus into what do we have right now? And what can I build from that point? And I think that's the answer to white. I mean, we are not reflective enough. And then there's the other part as well.

Andrew Stotz 04:38
So for the listeners out there, stop for a moment and think about what you have right now. What do you have right now is enough to begin the journey of realizing your dreams. There's more that you'll learn and those more that you'll need to learn. But you have enough right now I also kind of you remind me of a book I always read when I feel the pressures of life. And it's called practicing the power of now. And that book for any of the listeners who have not listened to it, I like to listen to it. I also have it up on my bookshelf, and it's practically falling apart for the number of times that I've gone through it. But sometimes in the middle of the night when I can't sleep when I feel a lot of pressures happening, sometimes, you know, when the Coronavirus, whole madness happened, and I felt scared about what am I going to do? And how are we going to survive and our businesses and all that. I went to that book. And that book basically, Reese entered me to say, at this moment, right now, I'm okay. And I think that, you know, talks to the bit to the point that a lot of times we miss the moment today, that we have. So that's what you reminded me of.

Ulrik Nerloe 06:02
I mean, the only thing there is, is now and I just said that announced in the past. And I said that and that is that is in the past. And this is the thing, I mean, it's amazing what we can do if we actually start to appreciate what's right here right now. And I'm completely convinced that everything happens for a reason. And of course, when I read the other day, that an old friend of mine, his he's just lost, this is your son, and I think he's like eight or nine years old or cancer. And I mean, I was devastated on his behalf and his family is bad. And of course, that challenges me significantly my believe that everything happens for a reason. But nevertheless, when I see in my own path, and all the paths of people I work with, I mean, when is it the real learn the most. It's not when things are shiny and pink and perfect, is when we go through a stage of metamorphosis, and we drag ourselves by and through a nightmare. And we get to the point where we think, Oh my god, I'm going to lose everything that I've gained. That's the moment where things change. And I think it's incredible, as well as my own life to experience these things. When you really think, Oh, my God, I'm going to hit rock bottom. I never hit one button, I experienced suddenly, something huge does opening up, that I haven't been able to see because I've been too much focused in either the past or waiting for the future.

Andrew Stotz 07:38
Well, it's a lot to digest. And I know for the listeners out there, focus on today, focus on the things that happen for a reason, and what can we how can we grow from this so well, now it's time to share your worst investment evidence, it's no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Ulrik Nerloe 08:05
So the circumstances that brought me to my worst investment was that I had 13 years in the IT industry and I was very, very successful. I was working as a sales director, and I was building up businesses from the bottom and was really, really good at connecting with people and generating businesses and putting strategies into process and making them angering and making people feel that they were a very large part of it, but I was so sick and tired of being around managers that were so poor in the abilities to to lead people. So I decided that I would leave and I would do something different with my life. And, and, and, and that brought me to the dream of my life, which is what's driving me forward every single day, which is the dream of changing the world to a better place where we actually get more insight for people to make them much more realized what they want. make them realize that how huge an impact we have on our outcome on our own life when we actually start to understand more about who we are instead of just knowing what we are. And, and now I've been doing that for the last 10 years. And my worst investment to get to that point is that I sacrifice everything inside of myself, too, to actually do so. And in the bottom of my heart. I'm a philanthropist. I mean if money was not an issue, I would never ever charge a single dollar for what I do because I so much love every time and I am having the opportunity to actually make an impact on people. But when I look back for the last 10 years, I would definitely have have had a completely different kind of financial founder If I if I would have stayed in the IT industry, because I mean when when you start to talk about love in in a collaborative environment, people start to look at you as you have pretty strange when you talk about the importance of bringing your heart to work and making people realize and leaders realize that the majority of employees, they actually leave their heart at home. And what does that can mean to being your heart away. I mean, the the journey of making people realize that people connect with people, not just roles, the roles, and the journey to understand that whole people create whole companies, which is my philosophy is an never ending journey, where I'm constantly worth walking on thin ice not knowing, am I gonna fall through this? Or will I actually succeed? And then, of course, is something that drives me every single day. But of course, every not every single day. But often I ask myself, is this going to be my worst investment ever? It makes me happy on a personal level. But financially, definitely, it's going to be sometimes it's a challenge.

Andrew Stotz 11:13
So how would you describe the lessons that you've learned from this journey?

Ulrik Nerloe 11:22
You know, one, Andrew, I think, when we start to realize what freedom is, we also start to realize that it has, of course to do with money. And on the other hand, it has nothing to do with money. Because having the liberty to decide, well, I will do my time to say yes, when you reach out, would you like to be a part of my podcast, and I'm able to complete a free, say yes, because I can prioritize my own time. That gives me the biggest and most fulfilling feeling of freedom. Sitting in a bench looking over the ocean, gives me a fantastic feeling of freedom. Whether the other hand, the feeling of freedom, by sitting in a plane, flying to Bangkok, last year in January, also gives me the feeling of freedom. So I think it's very important, not just to me, but for everybody to ask ourselves, I mean, behind every single green, the route is the feeling of feeling free. Because when you ask people, if you would win $100 million, what would you do? The majority people would say, I gotta quit my job and go traveling, quitting my job is about Republic doing the bowling thing, because it definitely does not make you happy. If I win 100 million euros tomorrow, I'm going to continue doing whatever I'm doing, I'm not going to change anything, because I love what I do. So traveling, is also about coming away, going away from wherever you are, and experience something new, which is again, connected on a long journey, but back to the feeling of being free. And and, and this is the aspect of of the learning from this. And and and then of course, you did sacrifice I mean, mine is not an issue, depending on the amount of expenses that you're carrying in your luggage. And I think this is I mean, expectations from others or assumed expectations from others are very often the thing that is actually generating the expense level that people surround them with. Hmm.

Andrew Stotz 13:44
I've been looking away as we're talking because I'm taking lots of notes. So maybe I'll summarize a few things that I take away based upon what you said. The first thing is at the beginning of the conversation, you talked about this idea that, you know, we kind of it's like it's like we know what we don't like, but we don't know what we could like. And I always say that this is the reason why people ask me, Why are you so happy in your life and you're doing what you love? It's because I always tell people because I quit. Because the only thing I could really understand definitively was what I was doing. And once I came to the conclusion that it wasn't what I wanted to do. I knew that definitively. And then I just walked away and said there's got to be something else. But if somebody asked me, How can you walk away if you don't know what that other thing is? I thought that's irrelevant. Once I've determined that this thing is not the right thing, why would I continue doing? So that's the first thing I wrote down. And then the second thing I wrote down was the, you know, you're, I'm just quoting what exactly what you said, so much love, you know, the idea of, I just, you know, respect the fact that you're bringing out you know, that love and trying Bring it out to the world and trying to show the world. You even have, I think, even have a little heart I saw earlier in your hand. There it is. There's a beautiful little, little heart. But I just appreciate the fact that you said those words so much love, like bringing so much love to work. The next thing I wrote down is it, you know, freedom has a cost. You want to go out and do it. I mean, I do my own business. And guess what, I have to suffer the consequences of my bad decisions. And I can tell you, when I worked at Citibank, I didn't have to, if myself or someone else made bad decisions, it just keeps going. And there's a lot of comfort to know that if I had a bad week or a bad month, last summer in my family, and I wasn't really contributing, it's not going to kill me. But if you're on your own, and you know, you got your freedom to do your own thing, the cost of that can be very high. And the other thing I thought about too, as I thought about, you know, your story and your, your, your situation is that I also think that I had a young intern asked me a while ago, after she followed me for a while I said, you don't work with me for a while with a bunch of other internet users? Do you ever lose confidence. And I said, You know, I don't really lose confidence in myself, I know, I can make it through anything I've been through so much. I said, but I do worry that the people around me lose confidence in me, or in my dream. And that's where I talk about the concept of runway, a lot of times with a startup company, we say you got to have a lot of runway, which means cash. But there's an emotional runway, for the people that we bring along on our dreams, whether that's a wife or a husband, or that's other people at work. And it just made me think about you know how it's really important to strike that balance and make sure you get lift off with your idea, because people are depending on you. And you need that if you don't get that support, you know, you're not going to get there. So I wrote down a lot of things and talked about anything you would add to that.

Ulrik Nerloe 17:12
I realized some years ago, there's three things that needs to be present for dreams coming true. It's courage, its resilience, and its energy, consciousness and awareness. Because if we don't find the courage, we will most likely never get started. And every time we doubt, and trust me, I mean, I never doubt myself, and I totally resonate what you just said, I sometimes doubt that people will lose their faith in me that they actually will never understand what it is that I'm trying to explain them. And that requires resilience. And for the people who are closest to me, what they admire me the most, is my resilience, because every time I go low, I go high afterwards. And that requires resilience. And then the energy consciousness, I mean, energy is what springs raises from A to B, go into laws of physics, that will, it will confirm that we are so much depending on energy. And if we do not carefully distributed our energy in those three aspects, courage, resilience, and we will never ever be able to actually go along with the process. And thereby the dream just goes into something that we thought and then it was just a brief thought that just disappear.

Andrew Stotz 18:34
So let me ask you based upon what you learn from this story, in your own experience, I want you to think about that young man or woman out there who's dreaming big dreams, they're going through their ups and downs. What one action would you recommend that they take to avoid suffering, the same fate or the same struggle?

Ulrik Nerloe 18:57
I love to quote everything in everything is, everything is possible. The Impossible just takes a bit longer time. Patience, patience is a part of resilience. And really to close your eyes and feel sense. Is this right for me. I mean, dreams is something you use. Of course, you can think of a dream but you can much more feel aggrieved. And if you can feel the fire burning inside of you, every time you build Close your eyes and you go those your eyes and goes to desired state, you are visualizing the moment where the dream materialize. If you can feel that the body's burning every single cell of positive energy and as you actually get so overwhelmed that you're so close to bursting into tears, then you know, it's the right thing for you. And every time you get the down that's the feeling you should search back into Just to confirm to yourself, this can happen. At the same time, we need to be aware of this present day to day. So, I don't believe that if you want to climb Mount Everest, you should still celebrate when you climb Mount Blanc. But that does not change, the fact that you can still dream about climbing on the top of Mount Everest, is just so important that you find steps to watch the realization of the dream, and appreciate it and love the moment where that really, really materialize. And that might be starting from the bottom, but it'll still bring you to the top.

Andrew Stotz 20:39
It's, you know, talking about the energy, the energy that you get from your dream, and, you know, for the listeners out there, if you're not getting energy from your dreams, you know, take some time to revisit those dreams, think about our youth when we did dream. And, you know, try to find those dreams. I mean, I just think about recently, I have a course the valuation masterclass. And basically, I'm doing a major upgrade to it. And I would say, we're talking about 700 hours of work in the last year and a half between myself and my team to take this to absolutely world class level, I can see it. And I explained to my team that, you know, I think about like a hockey puck, something a little bit smaller than a hockey puck, that's like a magnet, and I can visualize it on my head. And I can visualize the opposing magnet on the wall as my target. And every time I get away from it, I just get pulled back to it. And last night, I was, you know, I woke up 330 in the morning, and thought I can complete this 700 hours of work this morning. And I just couldn't help but get up early, make my espresso get in and work on it and just complete that 700 hour journey. But I had to have that desire and that passion and that love and that energy all the way through to get to this point. But I just tell that story. Because I want everybody who's listening to know, you know, you have a right you have a you know, you have an opportunity to find that dream, whatever that is, it doesn't have to be what someone else's dream is whether that's about what you bring to your family or whatever, find that dream, and use this discussion with Eric, this morning. And today as you listen to this, to make sure that you start to pursue that.

Ulrik Nerloe 22:33
In a few weeks, I'm going to I just published my new book, which is called the energy path, the art of leading with love. And that's going to be published in English in a few weeks as well just been published in Danish. And it's going to be available on w w w energy dash path calm. But that exactly that, that explains exactly how we should work with dreams. I don't believe in strategy, but even dreams why because when we look backwards strategies has just failed. And we've been miserable in implementing and making people understand the importance of why we should change and why we should actually do something different, which basically strategies. And I do believe that it's because we are so much emotion driven as people and a dream is an emotion, it's something that we feel and when we feel it we can relate to it and recur relate to it, we put our heart into it. And then things completely mature in a different way, just exactly as you just wipe with your magnet. And I do believe this is the future. The future is the people wants to be led as people and we need to connect humans as human, not just both Well,

Andrew Stotz 23:41
yeah, that's a great message. For the listeners out there too, is the idea. A lot of people try to take some comfort in building a strategy, you know, sitting down and making the strategy and all of that stuff. And in the modern world of MBAs and management, we're taught about all this strategy, but the fact is, if you don't have a powerful dream and vision for people to get excited about and to, to follow, no great strategy is going to get you there, if the place that you're going isn't empowering, and full of energy. So that's how I interpret what you said. I fully agree. Alright, last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Ulrik Nerloe 24:29
Oh, Andrew, I missed so much traveling. I missed so much being in the international environment. I used to do a lot of keynote speakers and workshops for international companies around the world and and I would love to come to Bangkok meet with you or other companies around the world to really make them release the unutilized energy that are just waiting to be released. And the potential that in people and in companies that are unutilized is enormous. Right now the rebuilding of people bringing energy back and bringing people back has I mean, there's two sides of that story. I mean, either you fail miserably. Or if you tell the story, right, you can actually succeed by creating one of the strongest environments and foundations for the future. And my dream is definitely to get as many people to read my book, and as well to go out and make people much more conscious and to, to generate energy and love in people and companies for the next year.

Andrew Stotz 25:35
Fantastic. And we'll have the links to all of this and all of the different ways of getting in touch on the show notes. So, listeners one day, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you my listener, reduce risk and increase return in your life. To achieve this, I've created our community at my worst investment ever.com. And I look forward to seeing you there. As we conclude, Eric, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status returning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Ulrik Nerloe 26:21
It's been just absolutely a pleasure to share my story and stick with a dream because again, everything is possible. The Impossible just take a little bit longer time.

Andrew Stotz 26:32
Well, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth, and also our health. Fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.